Gold

Countries Where Gold is Reportedly Produced with Forced Labor and/or Child Labor

Bolivia (CL)

Burkina Faso (FL, CL)

Burundi (FL)

Cameroon (FL)

Central African Republic (FL)

Colombia (CL)

DRC (FL, CL)

Ecuador (CL)

Ethiopia (CL)

Ghana (FL, CL)

Guinea (FL, CL)

Indonesia (CL)

Mali (FL, CL)

Mongolia (CL)

Nicaragua (CL)

Niger (FL, CL)

Nigeria (FL, CL)

North Korea (FL)

Peru (FL, CL)

Philippines (CL)

Senegal (FL, CL)

Sudan (CL)

Suriname (CL)

Tanzania (CL)

Uganda (CL)

Vietnam (FL)

Where is gold reportedly produced with trafficking and/or child labor?

According to the U.S. Department of State 2016 Trafficking in Persons Report, gold is listed as being produced with forced labor or forced child labor in Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Peru Senegal, and Vietnam.[1]

According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor, gold is produced with child labor in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Indonesia, Mali, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Niger, Philippines, Senegal, Sudan, Suriname, Tanzania, Uganda, and with forced labor in North Korea.[2] The list states that both forced labor and child labor are present within the gold sectors of Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Peru.[3]

What does trafficking and/or child labor look like in the production of gold?

Trafficking risk in illegal gold mining is linked with the presence of criminal groups and violence. Ongoing violence contributes to an environment of lawlessness and corruption, creating a population of workers that is fearful and desperate for work. The mere presence of armed groups in an area can restrict workers’ freedom of movement, which in turn increases reliance on employers and reduces workers’ ability to seek outside help in addressing abuses at their workplaces, especially if workers are far from home. Governments also cannot carry out monitoring of labor conditions or law enforcement in violent areas. The work involved in illegal gold mining is dirty, dangerous, and difficult, making it unattractive to all but the most desperate people. Victims of displacement, minorities, and individuals who lack identity documents often work in mines due to a lack of alternative employment options. Moreover, the environmental damage and displacement caused by illegal mining itself produce more vulnerable people who may have no choice but to participate in illegal mining to survive.[5]

In Peru and Colombia, illegal gold mines are often controlled by criminal groups, and the revenue generated from this activity has surpassed the revenue generated by cocaine trafficking in the world’s top two cocaine producers.[6]In the CAR, the Seleka and militia groups extract “taxes” from artisanal miners in areas they control, which are used to fund the conflict.[7]In other cases, these groups outright control illegal mines and the workers in them.[8] Similarly, in the DRC, armed groups control several types of mines, including gold mines. Miners may be forced to work under threat of violence or may be required to pay a “tax” to armed groups. Profits from gold mining, as well as mining of minerals including cassiterite, columbite-tantalite and wolframite, fund the ongoing conflict in the country.[9]

Discoveries of gold in a region can lead to “rushes” of migration, particularly in areas where people have lost other livelihood options. In the Kedougou region of Senegal, villagers who cannot support their families through agriculture or have lost their land to logging have turned to gold mining out of necessity.[10]This rush has precipitated a large-scale migration of migrants from neighboring countries such as Mali, Guinea, Gambia, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Togo, and Nigeria.[11]

The isolated nature of many mining regions as well as the “rush” nature of production can create highly vulnerable populations in mining camps and towns. There are anecdotal reports that sex trafficking has been noted in rapidly growing mining towns in Kedougou.[12]Verité has noted a high risk of both labor and sex trafficking in and around illegal mining operations in Peru.[13] Research from Free the Slaves has noted that, in Ghana, “Traditional social systems of protection are currently weakened or rarely in use in and around galamsey[14]gold mining communities (presumably in part because these are more transient communities).”[15] Human Rights Watch has noted that girls working on or near mining sites in Ghana face “sexual harassment, sexual exploitation and rape.”[16]

Child labor is also strongly associated with artisanal and illegal mining in a wide variety of countries including Mali,[17] Ghana,[18] Burkina Faso,[19]and the Philippines.[20] An ILO expert has stated that, “the more remote and more informal a small-scale mining activity, the more likely children are to be involved.”[21] In many cases, children and juveniles are among the migrant workers in mining, traveling either with their families or independently.[22] In general, child laborers in gold mining include both children working voluntarily, as a means of supporting themselves or their families, and children who have been trafficked. The ILO has noted that in general, the wages children earn in mining are less than those earned by adults.[23]

Although not a trafficking risk in itself, artisanal gold mining is highly hazardous and presents serious health hazards to all workers, especially children. The mining shafts in which workers, including teenage boys, often work are usually unstable and children can suffer severe injuries or death from falls and collapsed mine shafts.[24] The dust from pulverizing stone can lead to lung damage. Younger children often dig out the pits with sharp tools and carry heavy bags of ore, both of which can lead to musculoskeletal injuries.[25] In artisanal gold mining, powdered ore is mixed with mercury to create an amalgam that workers burn to evaporate the mercury and collect the gold. Women and children often perform this task at mining camps. This process is detrimental to workers’ health, as exposure to mercury can cause developmental and neurological problems, especially among children.[26] For women, mercury exposure can lead to birth defects.[27] Mercury may be ingested (accidentally during work or through contaminated water), absorbed through the skin (when it is handled with bare hands or miners swim in mercury contaminated water), or inhaled (when the mercury is burnt off pieces of gold). This can result in inflammation of vital organs, the inability to urinate, shock, and death. It can also result in skin lesions, irritation to the lungs, difficulty breathing, and permanent damage to the nervous system.[28] Verité research in Peru indicates that in some formal processing plants, workers are also exposed to cyanide with minimal personal protective equipment (PPE) and many workers are exposed to mercury with little or no PPE in illegal gold mining.[29]

CASE STUDY

Gold Production in Burkina Faso and Mali

The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that the Sahel region in West Africa accounts for a quarter of all child labor in mining. The ILO indicates that 70 percent of all children working in the area are less than 15 years old.[30]While the majority of gold in Burkina Faso and Mali is produced by large-scale commercial mines, often owned by foreign companies, small-scale mining offers an opportunity for income in a region ranked among the world’s poorest and least developed. The vast majority of child labor is associated with these small-scale mines. Many children working in mines work alongside and live with their families in camps near the mines. In other cases, children, particularly juvenile boys, may migrate by themselves to seek livelihood opportunities.[31]

Although much of the reporting has focused on children who migrate willingly, either individually or with their families, police have rescued children who were trafficked to gold mines in Burkina Faso.[32] The U.S. Department of State reported that women and girls are trafficked to gold mining regions for domestic labor and forced prostitution in and around gold mining areas in Mali.[33]

CASE STUDY

Gold Production in Peru

Verité’s research indicates that Peru is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of gold. Verité’s research also suggests that over 20 percent of Peru’s gold is produced illegally and that indicators of vulnerability to trafficking are widespread in the illegal mining sector. Verité found evidence that illegal gold is often “laundered,” after which it makes its way into Peru’s exports and the global supply chain. Although there are few official statistics on the amount of illegally produced gold that makes its way into global markets, Verité found cases in which gold exported to Switzerland could be traced back to areas in which the vast majority of gold is produced illegally and, or, in situations where indicators of vulnerability to human trafficking were present.[34]

The Madre de Dios region in southeastern Peru, which accounts for over three-fourths of Peru’s gold deposits according to the Peruvian National Institute of Planning, is a major site for both forced and child labor. Peru’s Environment Minister, Mr. Antonio Brack, told NPR’s Lourdes Garcia-Navarro in a September 2009 interview that “99.9 percent of all mining concessions in Madre de Dios are illegal.”[35]Workers are recruited from the Andean highlands and promised high wages, food, and lodging; however, these promises are rarely fulfilled. In Madre de Dios, worker interviews conducted by Verité revealed deception regarding terms of employment, induced indebtedness, physical isolation and confinement, withholding and non-payment of wages, physical abuse, the threat of denunciation to authorities, and induced addiction to illegal drugs. Verité also found evidence of sex trafficking and child labor in services related to gold mining.[36]The U.S. Department of Labor reported that, “one survey found that only half of the gold workers in Madre de Dios returned home with any earnings, despite the fact that their main objective for working had been to gain income for their families.”[37]A report published by the ILO in 2015 found multiple indicators of forced labor, especially degrading working and living conditions, in illegal gold mining in Madre de Dios.[38]

Gold Production and Supply Chain

The majority of the word’s gold – an estimated 75 percent in 2009 – is produced by large, multinational companies using advanced technology to extract gold in large-scale mines.[39] The remaining 25 percent is produced by artisanal mines.[40]

Gold is mined either through hard-rock or alluvial mining. In hard-rock mining, minerals and metals are extracted from rock, which can be done in large open-pit mines or in tunnels that are dug into rock faces. In alluvial mining, minerals and metals are extracted from water. This can be done through panning in rivers; sluicing, in which water is combined with materials (such as sand and dirt) and is channeled into boxes that sift and separate the minerals and metals from the material; and dredging, in which minerals and metal-laced sediment are sucked up from sediment in bodies of water.[41]

After the gold is mined, it must be separated from the material that bears it. In hard-rock mining, the rock is often ground into dust. The gold can either be separated using gravity concentration or chemical processes. Both mercury and cyanide are used and these chemicals must then be burnt off.[42] In artisanal and small-scale mining, mercury is used, and this dangerous process may take place in or around miners’ homes.[43]

Gold generally passes through several layers of consolidators, intermediaries, and exporters (some of whom may actually be illegal smugglers) before it enters into the processing level.[44] Once gold reaches refineries in countries including the United States and Switzerland, it becomes even more difficult to identify the origin of the gold, as gold from all over the world may be mixed and processed together. Refineries sell gold to banks, jewelry companies, and electronic producers around the world.[45]

Verité research has found that literally tons of illegally mined Latin American gold are purchased and used by central banks and major international jewelry and electronics producers, which are the main consumers of gold. A Verité analysis of Dodd-Frank Act compliance found that approximately 90 percent (64 out of the 72 Fortune 500 companies that filed conflict minerals disclosures in 2015) purchased gold from refineries with a pattern of sourcing illegally mined gold from Latin America.[46] A 2016 report by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime found direct links between some of the biggest exporters of illegally mined gold in both Peru and Colombia, and U.S.-based refineries that source gold to major electronics and jewelry brands, as well as links to the U.S. Federal Mint.[47]

How do Trafficking and/or Child Labor in Gold Production Affect Me?

Jewelry accounts for the majority of all gold use. Due to its high conductivity, gold is also used in electronics such as cell phones and laptops. Small amounts of gold are also used in dentistry and medicine. In 2012, consumers possessed approximately 75 to 80 percent of the world’s gold in 70,000 to 80,000 tons of jewelry, as well as other consumer goods, coins, and gold bullion. Approximately 20 to 25 percent of the world’s gold was held as bullion by central banks, which held about 30,000 tons of bullion, including 8,139 tons by the United States, 3,469 tons by Germany, 3,217 tons by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), 3,025 tons by France, and 2,590 tons by Switzerland.[48]

In addition to using a large amount of gold in its banking sector, Switzerland is a global clearinghouse for gold, with much of the gold it imports eventually making its way into gold bullion, jewelry, watches, and electronics that end up in the hands of consumers in countries around the world. Up to 96 percent of the world’s gold may go to Switzerland at one point or another.[49]

Environmental Consequences of Gold Production

In addition to being linked to forced labor, gold production is highly destructive environmentally. Cyanide and mercury are used to separate gold particles, and smelting produces 13 percent of all sulfur dioxide annually.[50]The chemicals used in gold production pollute water and surrounding land and affect human health. For example, in Peru, high levels of mercury have been found in Lake Titicaca, much of which comes from the processing of gold in La Rinconada, the highest city in the world;[51] and in the Madre de Dios region, the Amazon Conservation Association (ACA) estimates that 30 to 40 tons of mercury are dumped annually. This causes more than half of the commonly eaten fish to contain unsafe amounts of mercury, leading 78 percent of residents to have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood.[52] In Zimbabwe, women living near gold mining areas where mercury is used were found to have extremely high levels of mercury in their breast milk, putting their nursing children at risk.[53]

Acidic water, which is highly toxic, can drain from mining sites, contaminating local water sources. Acidic water can also leach other metals from rocks, such as cadmium, arsenic, lead and iron into water. These can make water unpotable.[54]

Additionally, gold production is linked with deforestation. In the Madre de Dios region alone, 370,000 acres of rainforest have been lost to gold mining, and there is no indication that the deforestation will cease.[55]In the Sahel Region in West Africa, gold mining is contributing to drastic deforestation and desertification, as trees are cut down to line mine shafts.[56]

When local populations are displaced or lose access to their traditional livelihoods due to gold mining, they may become more vulnerable to exploitation in gold mining or other sectors.

EXAMPLES

What Governments, Corporations, and Others are Doing

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is undertaking a high-level initiative to develop a due diligence policy for coltan, tungsten, tin and gold mining in conflict and high-risk scenarios, particularly the DRC. Forced labor is one of the indicators of “intolerable abuses” in this due diligence guide.[57]

In March 2010, the Fairtrade Labeling Organization (FLO) and the Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM) launched a Fairmined Standard for Gold and Associated Precious Metals. “Fairmined” gold certified under the standard must meet social, environmental, labor and economic requirements in artisanal mining communities. As of 2017, six artisanal and small-scale mining organizations are Fairmined certified. Fairmined is working across Latin America, Asia, and Africa to improve mining practices. The annual production of Fairmined certified gold is roughly 500 kilograms per year.[58]

The Responsible Jewelry Council (RJC) is a membership organization which aims to improve conditions in gold and diamond supply chains. In 2009, the RJC initiated a certification program for its members’ gold and diamond supply chains requiring obligatory third party auditing.[59]In 2012, RJC launched a Chain-of-Custody (CoC) certification. RJC has also partnered with the Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM) to “improve social, environmental and labor practices…enhance relationships between large-scale mining and artisanal and small-scale mining and increase market access for precious metals from responsible artisanal and small-scale mining.”[60]In partnership with ARM, in 2016 RJC piloted a combined Fairmined and CoC audit of metals refiner Metalor Technologies SA “with the objective of reducing audit burden, without compromising the quality and rigour of the audit process.”[61]

No Dirty Gold, a campaign from the NGO Earthworks, seeks to promote environmental and social standards in gold mining. As of 2017, more than 115 companies had signed on to the No Dirty Gold’s “12 Golden Rules” for sourcing, including eight out of the top ten jewelry retailers, with Target being the most recent addition.[62]The Madison Dialogue is another industry-focused organization which does not offer a certification program, but instead seeks to build engagement in the gold and diamond supply chains.[63]

In response to the hazards mercury poses to the environment and human health, whether used in gold mining or elsewhere, the UN Environmental Program (UNEP) drafted a convention on mercury, called the Minamata Convention. The convention was agreed to in January 2013, was ratified in the U.S. in June 2013, and has since been signed by 128 countries and ratified by 38 countries worldwide.[64]Signatories of the convention agree to measures limiting and controlling the mining, manufacture, storage, and trade of mercury; this includes a ban on the creation of new mercury mines and an agreement to cease operations of already operating mercury mines within 15 years.[65]